Tim, first I would direct you to paragraphs 2h and 2g of the forum rules. Your latest comments to me do not seem to adhere to those rules: how do your comments “continue and develop” the topic that Hugo began on this thread?
I don’t know if you are attempting to intimidate me or silence me, or possibly drive me away from this site. I don’t know how the moderator sees it, but I consider your latest comments and your previous outburst to be borderline abusive. I would guess that many of the longtime regulars of this forum are watching quietly and carefully to see how the newbie conducts himself.
In keeping with the intent of the above cited forum rules:
Many wise and thoughtful people down through the ages since the advent of the idea of democracy have concluded that democracy, if it fails, fails along a predictable course. That is, it becomes captured by wealthy, powerful interests. In my opinion that is the sad demise of the US and goes to the heart of the subject of this thread. I cited above the academics Gilens and Page and their analysis that supports this opinion. I arrived at this conclusion not this year or last year, but several decades ago during the tenure of WJ Clinton, wherein the leadership of the Democratic Party decided that if you can’t beat 'me, then join 'em. To compete on a peer level with the GOP in the ever increasingly expensive arena of extended campaigning they would have to avail themselves of the funding doled out by wealthy powerful interests. Of course there are strings attached and quid pro quo.
During the run-up to the '06 midterms I found several studies that were going on in real time that were tracking who was contributing large sums to campaigns, and to whom the money was being directed. The wealthy and the powerful could read the writing on the wall, and what the numbers showed was that, compared to previous election cycles the lion’s share was going to D candidates whereas previously it had been going to R candidates. It wasn’t that those contributors suddenly had a hankering for those policies traditionally championed by Democrats; it was a horse race and they were putting their money on the probable winners, and thereby ensuring their continued influence on the direction of policy. And of course many of those “Democrats” seemed to just crawl out of the walls, unknowns - and those were the “Blue Dogs.” That was what happened here in this federal congressional House district in that election. An unknown announced his D candidacy and was bankrolled by local wealthy interests, won the election, and promptly amassed a record of voting against traditional Democratic initiatives. Of course if the choice is between a phony republican and a true republican, the true republican always wins, and so it was, and our Blue Dog served one term and returned to obscurity.
The long and the short of it is that yes, what we have today in the US is a duopoly - both parties are owned by the same wealthy powerful interests, and do their bidding.
I was all for the impeachment of Trump, until the D party leadership decided on what particular abrogation of the public trust Trump violated. I could hardly believe it when they settled on the Ukraine issue to try to remove him. It was mind-boggling that they’d try to get Trump on something that Joe Biden is on videotape boasting that he had in fact done!
And speaking of Ukraine; I wouldn’t presume to lecture you or anyone else on the facts behind that situation, but I’ll relate what I uncovered in trying to understand what was really going on there. I investigated and researched because, as much as I hate to say it, I believe little of what our government now says, no matter which Party controls the White House. The collapse of the Soviet Union not only sent Russia proper into an economic and social tailspin but all those peripheral nations that had been a part of their bloc. Ukraine was no exception, and in fact was a center of much of the USSR’s military industrial base. As the years after the collapse went on U sank deeper into debt. Additionally, for many years Russia and Ukraine had been involved in an escalating dispute concerning the natural gas pipelines that traverse Ukraine from Russia into Europe. The dispute concerned transmission royalties, and promised supplies (to Ukraine) and from what I read, both sides acted in bad faith, and both sides waged a tit for tat campaign of retributions and accusations.
As 2014 approached, Ukraine’s situation became more dire and both Russia and the US/EU offered competing economic aid packages of approx. $15b. The then-president of Ukraine who was Moscow leaning decided to accept the Russian offer, the Maidan revolt erupted, he fled to Russia, and the fighting began. But there is much, much more to it than that. Despite assurances given to Russia by GHW Bush’s administration not to encroach on Russia’s security interests in Eastern Europe, it turns out those were empty assurances, and the US and NATO have steadily brought a military presence closer and closer to Russia’s borders. How would the US react if Russia or China established major military presences in Canada or Mexico? With a lot less restraint, I believe, than Russia has. The US sensed in 2014 that the time was ripe to remove Ukraine from Russia’s sphere of influence, and bring them firmly into our own, and our state department helped foment the Maidan revolt/coup.
And here’s another piece of the puzzle. I found in 2014 a report of the US DOE, prepared at the direction of the Obama administration that addressed the question - will the liquification and overseas sale of US frac gas increase GHG emissions? It was intended to be a “cradle to grave” analysis of all contributing sources of emissions associated with that effort. Though I have a technical engineering background I could not myself verify the accuracy of the estimates of the contributing factors of that study. We know that in all probability that the contribution of escaped methane emissions is severely underestimated. The conclusion of the study was that it was a wash, no appreciable increase in emissions. But I concluded that the study was flawed because it assumed the “grave” to be the arrival of liquified gas at the ports of Rotterdam and Shanghai, and not the re-gasification, transmission and consumption of that product to the target markets. More importantly though I believed that the entire study asked the wrong question altogether. What should have been asked was- Can this effort reduce GHG emissions? And that answer is a resounding NO. But, the US government, whether accurately or not, went through the motions of due diligence.
So, what is the importance of this wrt Ukraine, Russia, and the US? With Ukraine “officially” at odds with Russia, those pipelines and Russia’s ability to sell its gas to Europe are in jeopardy. Hence Nordstream II and the southern routes that Russia is constructing to circumvent Ukraine and continue to sell its gas to Europe. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Russian natural gas and US frac gas are in direct competition for the European energy market. Trump is a veritable fount of ludicrous verbal pronouncements, but occasionally he says something that makes perfect sense. Recall several summers ago he travelled to Europe for a NATO summit and visited and promptly insulted just about every national leader there. This was the trip where he called Merkel a “Russian Puppet” for Germany’s involvement in Nordstream II. But I also recall him saying at that time: “Of course Putin promotes the interests of his country, and I, as US President, promote the interests of our nation. That is what national leaders are expected and required to do!”
I don’t know where you reside Tim, but I live in the heart of the Marcellus and Utica gas play. It was those sources the DOE report used as the starting point. For a time I was involved in this boom, our company helping to build a geospatially and legally accurate GIS of surface and subsurface resources and ownership. I knew nothing of fracking when we began, but because I always want to know to what end my professional efforts and expertise are serving, I immediately began digging into everything that was known at that time (2008.) I won’t go there at this time, but this is what I want to highlight. This gas energy boom was heavily promoted here by both the industry and the local and regional pols as ensuring US energy security for at least the next 100 years. Indeed it could, regardless of the environmental/climatological consequences. However, in our capital dependent and privatized economy the only way that such an effort proceeds is through a “boom” that is fueled by financial investment and speculation. Those investors and speculators expect a return and a profit and that gas makes no money unless and until it is sold. We already have on hand much more gas that we can consume domestically at this time, and so the effort to sell the gas overseas is a direct consequence of this capitalism prerogative.
In one of the few political science courses I took in college we studied the behavior of energy politics in the US. The history is clear that the US oil boom, which preceded the development in other parts of the world, resulted in the very quick depletion of most of the largest and easiest oil deposits in the US as we were the “arsenal of freedom” during WWI and WWII. We very quickly became, and remain to this day, an oil importing nation. This is what I fear will be the result of the effort to market this new energy resource around the world. It isn’t about energy security for the long-suffering citizens of the US, it is about continuing profits for the energy majors.
So what was Joe Biden and his dipshit son doing mucking around in energy speculation in Ukraine? A few more tidbits. In the several years before the denouement in Ukraine several large energy interests (Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon, and Chevron) signed joint development agreements with various entities in Ukraine to develop shale-bound gas in NW Ukraine and in the Donbass. When the fighting began those agreements were vacated. I found a map of the known extent of the shalegas deposit in the Donbass: it almost exactly overlays those areas under control of the Russian separatists. Those sneaky, dastardly Russians! And, touché! US State Dept.
I believe the piece that Hugo mentioned by Cockburn specifically addressed the decline in US global leadership, and not the decline of US infrastructure, technological innovation, and domestic social cohesion or consensus. So here is the conclusion of my long explanation. Humanity must act decisively to prevent what could be a climate collapse. The US, either under the open refusal of the Republicans, or the duplicitous lip-service-only of the Democrats, refuses to lead. If we’re going to pick which “ism” is going to result in “The End of History” I would say that it will be denialism.
I watched Biden’s TV interview on Sunday and he did indeed seem coherent and alert. Distinctly different to other occasions I’ve watched him. At 67 I have good days and bad days, some mornings I have trouble recalling much-used words or names. His confused episodes seem to coincide with the rigors of campaigning, and that supports my contention. However, I’d like to remove this contentious issue from the argument. Even if he were 20 years younger, and sharp as a tack, I would not support him because he has seldom if ever in his long political career supported positions or efforts that I support, or opposed those US policy actions which I oppose. More of the same duopoly dance: heads they win, tails we lose.